And where was Cy Young candidate Felix Hernandez during all of this? In Seattle, with his last-place team, about as far away from meaningful baseball as a pitcher can get . . . There’s an award for a pitcher such as Hernandez. It’s called the ERA
title. Not the Cy Young Award, as voted on by the Baseball Writers’
Association of America.

To be the best, one must do what Sabathia and Price have all
season — compete against the best lineups, in postseason-type
atmospheres, before crazed crowds at hitter-friendly ballparks. And win.

“I do feel Greinke deserved the award,” Justin Verlander said in an e-mail on Tuesday. “He had an outstanding year.
“I know that his win (total) wasn’t as good as some would like to see
out of a Cy Young winner, but I believe that wins are not the most
telling stat of how a pitcher performed.”
How true . . . Verlander said Greinke’s 2.16 ERA “speaks for itself,” and he is absolutely right.

I guess win total matters more this year than it did last year. And apparently Hernandez’s ERA doesn’t speak as loudly as Greinke’s did.

Man, it must be hard to vote for the Cy Young Award, what with the criteria for winning it changing year-in-year out. Gotta stay on your toes!

Buchholz, 33, was acquired by the Phillies from the Red Sox in December 2016, but he made only two starts before an MRI revealed he had a partial tear of his right flexor pronator mass. He underwent surgery in April and missed the rest of the season.